JR. Forasteros - June 6, 2021
Reality TV
Before the Golden Age of Television was the rise of Reality TV. From Real World to the Bachelor to Survivor to cooking shows, we can't get enough of real people on camera. Why is that? What does our obsession with reality television say about our desire for authenticity? And how can we resist the temptation to produce our own lives?
From Series: "CataVision"
We're living in the Golden Age of Television. From Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones to Reality TV to WandaVision and the Mandalorian, we can't get enough of these serialized stories. Why do these shows resonate so strongly with us? Join us as we engage our favorite TV shows in spiritual conversations that challenge and transform us!
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Of all the monsters we’re looking at in this series, the Werewolf is the most ambivalent. Culturally, we like werewolves, we’re interested in them, but we don’t want to get TOO interested. They’re not as sexy as vampires. Ghosts are scary. Zombies are cool. But Werewolves? It’s almost as if we don’t quite know what to do with them.
Well, that’s not quite true. It’s that werewolves are just… more… dangerous. There’s an edge to them that other monsters don’t quite have.
Werewolves are humans who occasionally transform into wolves or wolf-like monsters. The wolf is terrifying, unpredictable and uncontrollable. Once the person transforms, once the monster comes out, there’s no telling who or what is going to be hurt. Usually the transformation is brought on by the full moon, though some more modern incarnations like the Twilight wolves and the Incredible Hulk are triggered by anger.
The Werewolf is a person who has this monster, a beast, a Wolf living inside them.
They know it’s dangerous. And most of the time, they’ve got it under control. They have ordered their lives in such a way that the Wolf can’t get out. They’ve built a cage for the monster with structure, with rules and discipline.
But inevitably, in every story, the Wolf breaks out. The monster hurts people around them, destroys their lives. So afterwards, the person tries to put things back together, apologizes for the damage the monster has done and starts rebuilding the cage, hoping to make it strong enough next time. They make new rules. Stricter schedules.
